Let's Know Verb (5)

Let’s Know Verb (5)

Nidhu Bhusan Das

Verb has three tenses and nine aspects.School level grammar books usually  skips the 'aspects’ and merge them with tense which brings the number of tenses to twelve.

We shall here today  dwell on three tenses - Present,Past and Future. They are known as Simple tenses.Of them,only the Simple Past Tense tells of the action that took place in the past relative to the Time of Speaking (TS).

The Simple Present Tense tells of an action which does not refer to an action of the present.time but an action which is meant to be Ever Present.

When the speaker says, “I walk in the morning”, (s)he means it is his/her habit. The expression, “Ice floats on water” means ice floats on water everywhere and anytime; it is universal like sunrise in the East. This is true of dynamic/action verbs and stative verbs.Whenever it comes to Primary Auxiliaries - Do,Have and Be -the verb refers to state,possession and action at the Time of Speaking. When it is said, “I am a student”, the verb 'am’ is existential and refers to the state of the speaker (I).

The verb “Have” means “possess” and “Do” refers to action.

This tense is also used to express planned action of near future as in “My mother leaves for the USA next week to attend the wedding of her younger brother”.

The Simple Past tense conveys the sense of past action relative to the Time of Speaking.When one says, “I came yesterday” it conveys the message that the act of coming occurred before the Time of Speaking i.e., the speaker reports a performed action.

Simple Future tense reports an action to take place or to occur. It refers to a plan to be executed or implemented, a possibility or commitment.